Holli Harrison

Soprano Holli Harrison, heralded as ‘stunning vocal beauty’ and ‘huge range, resilience and power,’ is positioned as a most promising young, dramatic soprano. A native of Chattanooga, Tennessee, Ms. Harrison is a Grand Prize Winner of the 2006 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Highlights this season include the Metropolitan Opera’s productions of Bellini’s Norma and Strauss’ Elektra.

Ms. Harrison made her debut on The Metropolitan Opera stage in the role of Berta in Bartlett Sher’s critically acclaimed production of The Barber of Seville in 2013.She returned in the fall of 2014 to sing Aksinya in Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, voted one of the top classical performances of 2014. Significant roles include Marianna in Das Liebesverbot, Boule de Suif in The Greater Good world premiere, both with Glimmerglass Opera, and her role debut of Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni at Fort Worth Opera. Her Donna Elvira was described by Opera News as: “a gratifyingly strong and consistent soprano that sustained full power in the low register. Harrison’s Elvira was a pretty tough lady, in both her vocal heft and her regal bearing.”

Having begun her career as a Young Artist with Pittsburgh Opera, Harrison joined the artist roster of the Metropolitan Opera in 2007 participating in productions of Robert LePage’s new Ring Cycle as Helmwige in Die Walküre and Dritte Norn in Götterdämmerung. Other contributions include Fünfte in Magd Elektra, Erste Damme in Die Zauberflöte and Ortlinde in Die Walküre directed by Otto Shenk.

Beginning her formal training at Middle Tennessee State University and continuing at Rice University, she went on to distinguish herself as an alumnus of Pittsburgh Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Aspen Opera Theater, Chautauqua Institute of Music, and Music Academy of the West. Alongside her success in the National Council Auditions, additional prizes include awards in the Wagner Division of both the 2010 Gerda Lissner Foundation and the Liederkranz competition in 2009. She was also the winner of the Opera Index Vocal Competition, the National Orpheus Competition, Grace Moore Competition for Singers, and was an R. F. Gold Career Grant recipient from the Shoshana Foundation.